Friday, June 24, 2011

Liquidate Your Assets: Sell Your Raw Land

There are some that find when they are in debt or dire straits, financially, that the best thing to do is to liquidate their assets. To liquidate means to convert assets into cash. And an asset is an item of value that is owned; including, but not limited to, businesses, homes, cars, boats, and jewelry; even, raw land. If you have determined that liquidating your assets is the plan of action that you’re going to take, here are a few tips that will prove to be most useful.
Evaluate your assets.
Make a list of your assets. This is the beginning of preparing your items for sale. Take good photographs, write down an accurate description of each item, and be sure to make note of serial numbers where applicable. Doing this will greatly benefit you by saving you time, energy, and expense as you begin the selling process. This also comes in handy if, once your items are sold, you need the information for income tax purposes.
Secure your property.
If, for example, you own a business and you plan to liquidate it, consider collecting keys from employees, changing the locks, or temporarily installing an alarm system until it sells. The latter might seem like a small expense that you’d rather avoid; however, you can’t sell your property successfully if you don’t protect it. It’s never ridiculous to consider the possibility of vandalism at the hands of people who might be momentarily angry about your decision.
Learn the liquidation value of your assets.
To correctly determine the value of your assets, you should work with a qualified appraiser. The liquidation value of an item is usually 20% less than the retail value in a forced sale to eliminate debt. In a private sale, a land investor, for example, would purchase your land for cash at 5%-25% of its fair market value. In any case, the proposed amount that you would recover in a sale should be given to you as written appraisals before you consider accepting offers for any of your assets.
Ensure that your sales are worthwhile.
Selling your raw land is one endeavor where your profit can outweigh your expenses by a considerable amount. A good land investor will evaluate your land and offer you cash for it while covering all liens, fee, and expenses. And, some land investors will arrange to return a profit to you within seven days’ time.
Choose the sale types for your items.
Once you’ve decided that your sales are worthwhile, you must decide what type of sales you plan to hold. For residential and commercial real estate, many people choose banks or real estate agents to help them. For boats, automobiles, other vehicles, appliances, jewelry, and more, some solicit the help of auction houses who will auction off their property beginning with a reserved price. For raw land (that is, unused and undeveloped land)—like, vacant lots, commercial lots, farmland, hunting grounds, and waterfront property—many choose private land investors to sell their land to for a quick, easy, no hassle sale.
Choose the best time to make your sale.
Consider where you live and what the climate schedule is like. Choose the best season, the best day, and the best time of day to hold your sale. You should consider the peek times when people might be looking to purchase homes, boats, lawn-mower and snow-blowing equipment, for example.
On average, a lot of people work during the weekdays and their free time falls on the weekend. On the other hand, business owners are accustomed to handling business on Mondays when they are freshly motivated to complete what’s on their agenda. It’s best to weigh what you have to sell against who is most likely to purchase it and do your best to take advantage of the typical time frames for certain groups of people.
In preparation for your sale, you might also want to take advantage of advertisement space that is available to you. Some sales papers and trade journals are free in the foyers of most grocery stores chains, for example, and consumers have learned to count on that as a bonus and a benefit. Placing an ad in one of these, on the grocery store or bookstore billboard (with permission), in the local newspaper, or online can boost your probability of potential buyers.
Sell ‘As Is, Where Is’.
Even though the experts you’ve hired will administer the paperwork that will transfer the titles of your assets, you should still check to make sure that every bill of sale states that it was sold “As Is, Where Is”. That way, at the end of the liquidating of your assets, you’ll be able to move forward without looking back. Becoming entangled in avoidable disputes is not something that anyone wants to endure.

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